Niah and Raisa
At 19, Niah seems eager to continue her work learning about animal reproduction, ailments and habits. Her younger sister Raisa is 16, and is the more outgoing of the pair, always seeking information which she can then relay to the Lords at Blackstone.
The sisters are the eldest of six children, with one other girl and three boys younger. Niah has a lot of experience with helping their mother raise the younger children, while her sister tends to shy away from such family matters. Niah has a steady boyfriend, named Lassiter, who is another beast-keeper at Blackstone. Raisa has had a series of very short relationships with boys but seems to think that she can do far better than any of them. Perhaps with a dragon to help her find a partner...
Lassiter is somewhat leery of his girlfriend going off to another Weyr, once she has mastered her husbandry, or if she and her sister are Searched. Which... they have been.
"She's going with me to Dawn Sisters weyr." Raisa said sharply. She'd had enough of this prattling. "And we'll stand for dragon bonding. You can't deny a search."
"Dawn Sisters-- Dawn Sisters weyr disappeared! Two years ago! How can you even suggest that it's taking candidates!?" Lassiter spun, his blond hair flopping around his bearded chin.
"It's been rebuilt, and besides," Raisa said with her dark eyes narrow, "the Protectorate moved two years ago, and we're still going."
Niah sighed, and whispered, "Maybe you could come along. But I don't know if they'd let you stay longer than to watch the hatching, Lassiter. You are already two years into your Mastery, and Blackstone does need you here tending the cattle."
"Cattle be damned!" Lassiter yelled. "I want you with me! Not in some foreign weyr with--"
"With what, Lassiter," Raisa spat, "with other men she might find appealing? With the chance to become a dragon rider? What part of that don't you approve of? You're no high-ranked lordling, Lassiter," she warned, while her sister closed her eyes tightly as if to shut out the fight. "You can't start bossing my sister around like that. You're not in any position to say these things."
"Or to keep me from going anywhere," Niah finally spoke up, louder than before. "Raisa's right. I ... I love you, Lassiter, but you don't own me. I've been Searched and I intend to stand. If I don't bond I'll come back to you and the beasts. It is what I love doing, tending them..." She stroked one of the family cats who had been sitting on her lap, her only source of comfort while her sister yelled. "But I've got to go do this, it's my duty. And it's your duty to allow me. I won't be unfaithful, Lassiter. You know I wouldn't be that way, anywhere. Here, or any other weyr on any world."
She raised her eyes to his, and he turned away first. "Fine. You go. But if you don't bond I ... I beg you to come back to me. This is where you belong."
Niah stood, shooing the cat away, and embraced Lassiter, wrapping her arms around his chest as she hugged his back. "I promise, my love. Perhaps you could come to the hatching."
Raisa rolled her eyes and slumped down into her own chair. The cat strolled by and Raisa tugged on its tail, getting a typically angry "myap!" from it. "We've got to pack, now. We'll get word to you when the hatching is on. 'Promise'." She had no great love for this man, obviously...
But she was correct, at any rate. Lassiter left their den and the sisters silently began the task of choosing clothes and personal items to bring to Dawn Sisters. Their parents had nothing bad to say about their Search, both of them had always hoped that their children would be something more than the mundane sort.
Raisa of course had so much fire in her that it was a wonder she'd ever chosen the field of scribing. It was such a tame practice... Though she did seem to exploit it a bit more towards the 'spy craft' which Alabaster was more known for. Perhaps they'd find a place for her among their sneaky bunch. Hairan sighed and pulled his wife toward him.
They watched their eldest daughters as they busied themselves around their part of the den. "They're going away..." Nanhari stifled a sniffle. "My babies..."
"Your babies are still here, and one of them has drawn on the den walls with expensive inks again..." Hairan chuckled. His wife spun and caught their youngest at his artistic best.
In the morning, the two sisters had fully packed and said more of their good-byes. The beastmasters made certain that Niah would have a place back at their school if she didn't bond, while the scribners secretly gathered a large pile of supplies which would be accompanying their snitch Raisa along to the weyr.
Lassiter stood silently at the edge of the beast pens, half a height up from the courtyard where Blackstone's visiting dragons landed and took off. Niah could see that he was still greatly displeased with this whole development, but ... She was going to bond. She'd come back a dragon rider, wouldn't she?
As the sisters were loaded upon a dragon who'd traveled a very long way through space and time, Niah asked her sister, "you do think I'm going to bond, don't you? Do you think I'm really good enough to --"
"Of course you are," said the dragon's rider, a smiling blond woman, before even Raisa could react. "You don't know that your mind is very clear? The dragons seem to like you quite a bit, but you're very distressed. They don't know what's wrong."
"It's my boyfriend," Niah admitted. Then she furrowed her thin eyebrows. "You mean the dragons can... hear me?"
"More like feel you," The green rider said, packing down their bags on Kirtith's back. "And you as well," she indicated Raisa, "but not as much. You've more of a spark like a normal rider." She confirmed what the search rider had told them. "I think you'll both bond."
"Well there you go," Raisa said, waving her hand at the rider. "Words from the expert! I was going to say ... well, mostly the same thing. Only I didn't know she could throw her feeling aroung like that."
"No wonder the animals would behave..." Niah whispered. "You know I've always had that touch with the beasts. I guess that might explain it..."
"It might," the rider, Zacia, said. "But you'll find out anyway. Let's go!"
They mounted up, it was heavy with the three riders and all the packs, but the big green could handle it. Her wings were typical of a Dawn Sisters dragon, big and strong. Raisa and Niah admired the dragon as she took to the sky, neither of them afraid, both of them smiling and waving to their friends on the ground.
Niah spotted Lassiter, who did not wave as enthusiastically as the others, but he gave a kiss on the wind to her. They teleported away to Dawn Sisters, a long way away but no distance at all.
